This is a journal of my vegetable gardens. Skippy was my first dog and he thought the garden was his, even though I did all the work. Now Suzie and Charley follow in his footsteps. We're located near Boston (USDA zone 6A). I have a community plot, a backyard vegetable garden, fruit trees, berry bushes, chickens, and bees. I use sustainable organic methods and do my best to grow all of my family's vegetables myself.

Saturday, January 14, 2017

seed catalog

Today I ran across a seed company I didn't know about. NE Seed Co. They have a really nice catalog. I was getting my haircut and they had the catalog on the table. What hair salon has seed catalogs! Great reading. I just requested a copy. I can always find room for a few more varieties in my garden, but mostly I want to finish reading it.
NE Seed Co is a seed distributor located in Hartford CT.

8 Comments:

I want to thank you for your blog....especially during the winter when being in the garden is difficult...and the spring...and the summer...and the fall ....as you can see I love your posts, I really look forward to each one....great gardening information and photos...good to hear the successes and failures in the garden, and the different solutions that all gardeners can share. Love the photos and stories about your dogs and wild life too.... Please keep up the good work...you are making a difference. Thanks again, a northwest organic gardener

Have you ever tried Sample Seeds?....I order from them every year... I have a small garden and the large seed packets go to waste, sample seed packets are small, inexpensive and low shipping fees.. I can have fresh seed every year or two... they don't have as much variety as the larger companies, but for most things I can find the varieties I like to plant. It is also nice to try something new without large cost or large amount of wasted seed. northwest organic gardener

And thanks for pointing me to Sample Seeds. It's an interesting site. Sounds like a great resource for someone with a small garden and if you don't want to save seeds. Tomato seed packs have 15 seeds and cost 1.50. That's great. And no shipping charge. For comparison, Johnny's packets have 40 seeds, cost about $4, and have a $10 shipping charge.

I wasn't able to find where they get their seeds from. It's nice that they assure that they are all OP and non GMO. They must buy bulk seeds and repack. That's a lot of work by hand. I think it's nice to buy from companies that produce and test their own seed and tell the source of seeds they didn't grow themselves. I was just reading the fantastic catalog for Adaptive Seeds.

I'm going to post a picture of my seed saving and organizing method soon. I LOVE to have a big container of saved seeds (and I have a big garden). Many seeds last 5-10 years. Some only 1-2 years, but many are great to collect, reuse, and share.

Adaptive Seeds - one of my favorites! Last year I grew their SunnyBrook Peppers and Early Moonbeam Watermelons because they indicate don't that they are perfect for short season areas. Well, I know we had a very warm, dry season, but these plants really out did themselves! I have never, ever been able to grow so many Peppers to full ripeness as I did with these (without any insect damage or blossomed end rot). I had ripe Peppers in early July. They taste great and I have tons in the freezer. I got 6 8lb watermelons off two plants, and they all ripened, without a hitch. Three of my neighbors grew cantaloupe and didn't get a single ripe fruit (they all rotted). DebS.

I love how you say your melons and peppers outdid themselves! That's so cool. I am imagining lush fruit-filled plants. A great thought in the middle of winter, even if it is a ridiculously mild winter here so far. After a very warm dry summer.

I grew a watermelon last season that I was disappointed with. It ripened well in the long hot summer, had a pretty yellow rind and red flesh, produces well - about six 3lb melons from six plants, but the melons were full of seeds and had no flavor (even in a martini). They were an heirloom from a very good seed company. Maybe the variety has some value to someone who wants to cross it and use the early and pretty yellow rind to make a melon that tastes good. I'll compost the seeds.